24 Mar, 23
Good morning,
Welcome back to Strait Up, our weekly newsletter that makes sense of what’s going on in Southeast Asia.
Two of our stories this week are focused on the travel sector, and both deal with sloth in fixing broken systems. I write about the crushing manpower shortage slowing Malaysia’s tourism sector, while Katrina looks at how it may be time to fix The Philippines’ outdated airports. Both problems have festered for years and been brushed under the carpet, but things are coming to a head.
As for our third piece, Nadine writes about TikTok parent ByteDance’s web novel publishing Fizzo, and how it senses a big opportunity in Indonesia.
Let’s dive in!
Lead image credit: Marten Newhall / Unsplash
